“Not really.”

“So what did you do?”

“I just gave her some advice.”

“Advice?”

“Back when she was having that trouble with Pyre.”

“And Pyre just suddenly decided to leave her alone?”

“More or less.”

“Was there a reason for that?”

“Pyre might have picked up the impression that Xiaofan had a curse on her causing anyone who got too close to her to suffer horrible accidents.”

Caldera eyed me. “How exactly did he get that impression?”

“It’s hard to tell how these things get started.”

Caldera gave me a look. “Anyway,” I said. “Xiaofan’s object reading is metaphorical, not precise. You heard what she told us. She can get a sense of the personality of an object’s owner, what they used it for, how it got passed on, that sort of thing, but she can’t give you the kind of stuff you’d search a database for. She’s not going to read off height, weight, and eye colour.”

“But she might be able to recognise them if she saw them in a picture.”

“It’s not really the way she works.”

“But it’s possible.”

“Maybe,” I said reluctantly.

“Then why didn’t you get her to come in?” Caldera asked. “You just said she trusts you.”

“Because she does trust me, and I don’t want to take advantage of that. If everything hinged on what she could tell us, then maybe, but I’m not going to force her to do it on a tiny off chance of getting something that might help.”

“Verus, if you never want to make people upset with you, you’re in the wrong job. We’re the police. We’re not here to be nice.”

It was still a line I wasn’t comfortable with crossing, but I knew I’d taken the argument as far as I could. “Have you checked your phone?”

Caldera gave me a suspicious look but pulled the phone from her pocket. As soon as she read what was on the screen, her brow cleared and the futures in which she kept asking me about Xiaofan vanished. “They’ve got the CCTV. Come on, we’re going back to the station.”

“After you.”

| | | | | | | | |

I couldn’t help but relax slightly as I stepped through the gate back into Keeper headquarters. I still didn’t feel one hundred percent comfortable in the place, but you can get used to anything, and the sound of Keepers, auxiliaries, and admin staff talking and typing and walking through the narrow halls was familiar now. Besides, when you’ve got an assassin to worry about, hanging out with a bunch of cops suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad deal.

Once we were back in her office, Caldera tapped at her keyboard for a second, then beckoned to me. “Take a look.”

I walked around the desk. Filling most of the computer screen was a headshot of a man in his thirties. The face was long and angled, eyes expressionless and grey. The beard was thinner, and there were no sunglasses this time, but I recognised him all the same. “Look familiar?” Caldera asked.